Our Roots
by BethShadows
Summary: We don't choose our family and they don't choose us, but we learn to go get along. Mostly. All it takes is one wrong ingredient to spoil a bake. All it takes is one wrong person to wreck a family. Forever. (Repost of "Roots" three years since it was originally posted)
1. Roots

I wrote this back in 2015, now three years later I have re-visited it, edited it, etc.

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We don't choose our family and they don't choose us, but we learn to get along. Mostly. All it takes is one wrong ingredient to spoil a bake. All it takes is one wrong person to wreck a family. Forever.

Siblings were meant to argue and fight, that was just human nature. Although the fights can be brutal, your siblings are your best friends , They know so much about you. Even how you'd react with certain things, as if you were merely a chemical. Your siblings know what your nature is, and they can use that against you. But if they truly care for you they won't. My younger brother didn't care for me, he was jealous. Always.

I loved him and helped him and he turned against me, using those weaknesses he learned over years forced to live as a functioning family. He worshipped the Dark Gods, despite all we said. He choose to hunt not for food but for pleasure. The thrill of the kill. I taught him how to fight and he learned all he could about me in those times. He knew I was an angry man and when I got angry my magic flew out my mind - all I wanted was to give the person's throat a good, tight hug.

I had an older brother too. He helped me with everything, slipped me extra food, taught me the best ways to fight. I thought I was being nice teaching my younger brother, but that was the first mistake I made. He was essentially a sociopath. He was always the outsider, always living so close yet so distant.

We looked different too. Me and the youngest sister both had the grey eyes of our father, while my oldest sister (yet still younger than me) and both my brothers had the green eyes my mother had. They always suited her, with the dark brown hair all but the youngest son inherited. He had the jet black hair.

When it came time to choose our names, the final piece clicked into place. The final piece that we had buried under lies of growing up and struggles of a 17th century life.

I took Skulduggery Pleasant. My older brother took Brogen Edge , my sisters took Phoebe Stalk and Lena Moon (oldest and youngest respectively) but my younger brother took a name I will never forget as long as I walk this earth. He took Nefarian Serpine.

I told Valkyrie once that my family made my crest mean something. They did. All besides me and that snake of a brother. Serpine. Serpentine. A characteristic that resembles a snake…/p


	2. Betrayal

Thanks to **DeadGirl19** and **Mya2015** for reviewing. And thanks to Mya2015 for requesting more!

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When he betrayed me I felt… I didn't know what to feel. Apart from that burning, burning rage deep inside. We had all been so patient with him but he betrayed that bond of family the moment that knife touched my sister's throat. When Phoebe's lifeless body hit the ground, Brogen snapped. So … Serpine, I refuse to utter his full name, snapped him. I still remember the scene. The neck at that horrible angle and those green eyes so dull and glazed. How I wished those were Serpine's eyes gazing at the world through the thick layer of glass. The glass preventing life and death from merging as one.

When I married and had my beautiful little girl, in a fit of jealousy and hatred at me, well you know what that thing did. To me, my wife was as perfect as anything ever to grace this earth. Her name was Abitha Elixir. Abitha had soft red hair that curled slightly, with skin that was tanned even in the Irish weather. Her brown eyes always radiated warmth and love. When Esther, or Essi, was born I felt like my whole life was complete once again. The pain of Phoebe and Brogen's deaths faded as I held the little child I had created. She had my grey eyes and a head of light hair. At first I thought she was angel, but I was always a rational man. I knew Angels couldn't grace the earth as a newborn babe.

My picture of happiness lasted years, even through The War.

Then he ruined it.

He used his little puppets to take Abitha and Essi to his castle. I felt a helpless despair and and overwhelming hopelessness I hadn't felt in so long. When he got me and I saw them, that flame or rage that been doused was re-lit. Burning brighter with hate and a frightening desire to rip his head clean off. I was so certain I would laugh when I did.

He destroyed Essi first. Even in Death, she was still my precious child. My precious angel. She had never looked more like an angel than in those moments. Her hair had grown in blonde, like her maternal grandmother and her grey eyes reminded me of my youngest sibling. My little Lena.

I kept Lena away from the War as long as I could but I failed.

For years she was prisoner at the hands on Mevolent. Whispers of her torture and agonising screams dripped from the toungue of a snake as he killed Abitha before my eyes. Comparing her near dying screams to that of his own sister. The screams he got from watching her being beaten and almost killed every few days or so. He even spoke of boredom after two months, yet he continued to draw blood. The only marginally good thing I got from this was that Abitha wouldn't have to suffer that same fate. Because she would be killed faster than Lena.

I felt so ready to end his miserable excuse for an existance. Even if it meant stopping down to his level. Down to the level of a complete monster. When he left me dying on the cold floor. I saw Lena, to this day I'm still unsure on whether she was a ghost or a figment of my imagination. She hardly recognisable as the little girl who used to throw mud at the older boys in the village when they wouldn't let her play with them.

I saw Brogen and Phoebe too. They beckoned me to follow them to the Afterlife. Abitha and Essi too. All I loved that had been torn away , and they were tempting me into the Afterlife. The Afterlife I couldn't follow them to even as I felt my life leave and turn to nothing.


End file.
